Operation team leaves smiles behind in senegal

SUFFOLK

While other travelers were heading home for the holidays, Melva West, from Whaleyville, was boarding a plane to Thies, Senegal, for a week-long mission with Operation Smile. It was the organization's first trip to Senegal, but West's 14th mission with the group as a medical records specialist.

West, 63, wonders before each mission if she should slow down.

"But it gets in your blood and I've truly enjoyed each mission," she said. "I see something new each time."

A team of about 40 medical specialists and non-medical volunteers from around the world met in Thies on Dec. 13 to provide free physical exams and reconstructive surgery to children - and some adults - with facial deformities. The volunteers came from France, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco and the United Kingdom as well as the U.S. to work at the Regional Hospital of Thies.

They screened 151 people over two days, checking the severity of deformities including cleft lips and palates, as well as general health and ability to withstand surgery. All patients had to be at least 6 months old.

"People traveled a day and a half on donkeys to bring their children in," West said. "They slept on grass mats outside of the building the night before the screening."

"They had nothing - but they all had cell phones," West said.

Sixty-six of the 151 patients screened were eligible for treatment.

"The ones that were turned down were devastated," she said.

West estimates the next mission could triple the number of patients treated because "the ones we fixed looked so good."

Mirrors were among the most requested supplies, West said, because the surgeries resulted in such dramatic and immediate improvements that the doctors were eager to show patients.

Senegal was warm - in the 80s during the day - but felt hotter since the hospital had no air conditioning. With no grass in sight, the area seemed dirty. West joked the area has to be the mosquito capital of the world.

The center where the volunteers were housed was adequate, although there was no hot water, but she enjoyed the diet of rice and vegetables, including carrots the size of turnips.

Volunteers used interpreters to speak to patients and their families since most of the country speaks French. West, who speaks no French, said it was challenging to communicate with her Moroccan roommate, another volunteer, who spoke very little English.

Compared to other international missions she's done, West said the people in Senegal seemed well nourished, but were so eager for treatment they would hide other medical problems. They were also very shy.

One of the volunteers brought along a ventriloquist's dummy named Kamau, to make friends with the children and pantomime some of the medical procedures.

"I saw some of the worst facial deformities I've ever seen," West said, adding that a large number of adults were among the surgical hopefuls.

At least seven patients screened may be eligible for expense-paid trips to Norfolk for more involved surgery.

West's involvement with Operation Smile stemmed from a 1983 accident when a horse kicked her daughter in the head. Det Rae West, who was 4 at the time, was injured severely enough to be airlifted to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk.

Dr. William P. Magee Jr. told West that the break in her daughter's jaw had narrowly missed the nerve that controlled her smile. Seven years of plastic surgery erased the scars left by the accident - with her smile intact.

"We were so very lucky and that was in my mind as I watched the growth of Operation Smile," Melva West said. "I kept telling myself that someday I would go on a mission with them."

Magee, a plastic and craniofacial surgeon, and his wife, Kathleen S. Magee, founded Operation Smile, a worldwide children's medical charity, in 1982.

West volunteered for an Operation Smile mission to the Philippines in 2000, and has volunteered for up to three missions a year since.

To help pay a portion of her own way, she gives presentations about the missions on behalf of Operation Smile.

"I get a sense of satisfaction of helping others, making a difference in their lives," she said. "We help give the gift of life to children who don't really have a life until they're helped."

She also believes her eight grandchildren benefit.

"The souvenirs and memories of what I do might make them better people," she said.

Her husband, Hugh, is a retired Suffolk attorney who is also involved in community volunteer work.

"He may not have the patience to do the travel and put up with the hectic pace of the mission," she said. "But he appreciates what I do and is proud of me.

"Every mission is a new experience," she said. "But each time I come home and see my husband and our beautiful home, I cry. This is a little piece of heaven on earth and we don't even realize it."

Phyllis Speidell, (757) 222-5556, phyllis.speidell@pilotonline.com